A lot of conversations with customers have begun the same way lately: “Do you ever have calves for sale?” I tell them that sometimes we have Jersey steers, but we keep all our heifers to grow the herd. And that’s when they share what’s really on their mind, that they want to raise a calf for their family because it feels more affordable than buying a finished animal, and because quietly, they’re trying to create something steady in a world that no longer feels that way. These questions aren’t...

Some years don’t break you all at once they just keep pressing down until you start to wonder what’s holding you up. This was one of those years. It was a brutal summer hot dry and dusty, so dry even the weeds wouldn’t grow after months of drought and still we planted seeds without a sight of hope, The rain finally came carried in by a tropical storm from far away. It rolled over the mesa like forgiveness, soaking the dust that had baked itself into the earth. The corrals turned to...

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, it felt like the ground had been pulled out from under us at Rocky Ridge. We had worked so hard...